"Grandma, it was so much fun at school!" Yiyi cheered as she doodled little figures into her math book. "Today, it was Lili's birthday! You know, we had a big, big, big chocolate cake and they even let us watch a movie! It was so cool!"
Still giggling, the young girl placed the final detail on her illustration, and proudly looked down at the scene. The drawing depicted a farmer; he was unloading a load of apples off his truck while a young girl stood by the truck, grinning wildly. Her grandparents stood by her side, each holding one of her hands. Something she oftened dreamed of. A distant memory of the past.
Looking up, Yiyi found herself dissapointed to see no one to share her creation with. Her grandmother, once so lively and bright, now lay on a hospital bed - so out of place in their tiny apartment - with an oxygen mask over her wrinkled face. Beside the, now frail, woman sat a greyscale portrait. It was small in size, a tiny reminder of what had once been. He was smiling warmly at the camera, his wrinkles fainter than what the young girl remembered. On his arm, was a younger version of her grandmother. Yiyi remembered growing upseeing the mischevious look in her grandmother's eyes as they played together in the farm's ever expanding fields. Her grandfather had always been a sterner figure, but he'd loved her nonetheless.
That was all no more.
Climbing carefully over her elderly grandmother, Yiyi settled down on the thin cot and gazed at her elderly guardian. In her hand, she held a plush little cat doll. She'd always been with her grandparents as far as she could remember. Her own parents had been too busy to pay her much mind, even from the first moments of her life.
"Grandma, listen to me!" she cheered, holding the doll up to the sky before allowing herself to fall over and lay beside her grandmother. "Look, it's Meow Meow!" When she didn't get a reply, Yiyi prodded her grandmother once again. "Please?"
Even then, she was unable to get a peep from the sleeping woman. Finally relenting, Yiyi sighed and snuggled up in the blanket strewn at the foot of the bed.
Growing up, Yiyi's grandparents had always been traditional people. They'd used gas stoves, wired telephones, and both had always insisted on travelling the city via bicycle. Then, one day, they'd given in to using a bus. Yiyi had always told them how much she enjoyed going on buses, and they hadn't thought it would hurt to try.
A speeding car had been all it took.
An out of control driver.
Yiyi's grandparent's hadn't survived. It wasn't supposed to be like that. Even Yiyi knew it. Buses were bigger, cars were smaller. The car should have taken the damage. It hadn't. The car driver had gotten a concusion. Yiyi's grandparents, and many others on the bus, had suffered life long consequences. Her grandfather had died right there and then. Maybe that was merciful. His wife may never wake up again. Coma. She may as well be dead.
Knock knock!
"How have you been Yiyi?"
Her father was rarely on time to see her. He was an unassuming man: not very tall, not very handsome, not even all that outspoken. Yiyi loved everything about the balding man who stood before her now, holding a basket in his hands.
"Papa!" Yiyi grinned, crawling off her grandmother's cot and scrambling to give her father a hug.
"Where's your stepfather?" her father asked curiously. Yiyi chose to ignore that question, instead shoving her new drawing into her father's face. Surely he would pay attention to her. She'd considered showing her uncle, but it didn't seem much of a worthy endevour since she was pretty sure the man ate fairies' wings as candy. Her father did not pay her the attention she craved. "Your stepfather, Yiyi. Where is he?"
Once again, she ignored him. Instead, she chose this moment to take a peak at the basket. "What's in there?" She went on her tippy toes to take a look. Inside, sat a single apple. Except, it was bright red and the largest, roundest fruit she'd ever laid eyes upon. "Ooooh," she clapped. "Is that for me? Will you cut them for me? I want apple bunny slices, Papa."
"Of course my darling," her father smiled at her. "Apple bunnies coming right up." He procurred a pocket knife from his coat and grinned down at the little girl.
The door snapped open.
The man who entered was one clad head to toe in expensive tailored clothing. His face was clean shaven, his hair gelled back so not a single strand sprung out of place. It had been the obvious choice for Yiyi's mother to have married the rich man after her divorce with the normal nine-to-five woker that was Hua Yi's dad. She didn't much care for the man though. To her, he was nothing more than the uncle who she'd been stuck with all this time.
"It's time to go," the man said, barely even looking at her. "You have piano lessons soon, it's best we leave within the next ten minutes."
He smelled of cologne. Yiyi hated it. The smell of lies, she thought.
"Mister Yang," Yiyi's father nodded to the man. "Thanks for looking after my daughter all this time. I'm truly grateful for all you've done."
He was ignored.
"Hua Yi," Mister Yang snapped, lifting his phone away from his ear. "Move or I will make you. You have piano lessons and your homework is no where near completion. Unless your hope is to spend the rest of the night completing it by yourself, I suggest you get a move."
Yiyi's father really was a coward, she thought. It wasn't necessarily something she disliked about him. But maybe she wished that he defend her from this man. If he weren't such a weakling, he would have saved her from this tyranical man. She could be safe from him.
"And look at this," her mother's new husband declared. "Not a single question on this homework is correct." That paper came flying at her face. "Maths tuition will be in order. Your mother will be disappointed when she finds out."
"Mi- Mister Yang," Yiyi's father spoke. "Surely you don't have to be so strict with her. My daughter is only six, she's still growing-"
Mister Yang glared at him until he went quiet. "Your daughter you say. Yet who pays for everything she needs? Who owns the house she lives in; who puts food on her table? Your daughter you say, yet you only take responsibility for her when you find it convenient. You claim her as yours but you have, not a day in your life, repaid me for what I've invested into your child."
Father's a cowards.
Yiyi shrunk back as the men yelled. Or, rather, as her father was yelled at by the younger, more successful man for the older man seemed to almost shrink back more than he stood up for himself.
"You are nothing but a pawn in the grand scheme of things. A worthless man who's daughter I merely tolerate becuase of the love I hold towards the woman I married. If it were up to me, this child and by extension you, would not receive a penny from me..."
The words droned on and and on in the background as Yiyi tried desperately to block them out from her mind. But there were things that she could not ignore.
"If it were up to me, I would have pulled the plug on the old woman the moment she came into my responsibility."
"Noooo!" Yiyi wailed, trying to square her shoulders. Her grandma was the most important thing to her. This man had no right to-
"Silence you wretch."
"Don't speak to her like that," Yiyi's father spoke up at last. "She's just a kid."
"It's just discipline. Not that someone of as low a status as you has ever been exposed to it. I'm sure that even now you still lack the proper self constraint that a real working man should. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be able to afford to keep even yourself afloat, let alone the child and that elderly husk of a woman."
She isn't a husk. She's Grandma...
Yiyi jumped when the apples her father had brought her came tumbling down to the ground, most of them losing their once pristinely round shape. Her mouth hung open. She wanted to scream. But nothing came out as she watched her stepfather grind his expensive shoes into the fruit that had probably cost her father so much to purchase for her. Fruit she hadn't even had the chance to bit into; she'd never gotten to taste how sweet the juice porbably would have been.
"Please don't..." Yiyi mumbled. She could hear her father yelling. That wasn't better. It wasn't better that he finally defended himself because in Yiyi's eyes, he was a coward. A coward who, try as he might, may never truly be enough. But what else did she have? What choice did she have but to stand here and watch as-
Don't cry, child. Let me make it better.
Yiyi looked up. It hadn't been a voice, per se. But it had been something; something not quite human. The voices of the men no longer sounded as all consuming as they had been earlier. In fact, thye had all but faded into the background.
I can fix this Yiyi. I've watched you for a long time now, I understand your pain. It need not be like this anymore my child. It can be better. I can help you make everything so much better. Come here, let me help. That's all I want to do.
Her eyes landed on Meow Meow. Something seemed off about the doll now. The voice radiated from it like some unseen power. All consuming. Powerful.
"Could you really?" She asked hesitantly.
Of course child. I've been with you all your life, watching, bearing witness to your pain. I just want to help you end it. Just trust me.
Yiyi gave a weak nod. The men paid her no mind.
Come, give me a hug. A warm hug like you always do.
She stumbled forward, limbs heavy, and grabbed the stuffed animal as tightly as she could. Her arms wrapped around it tightly as she stood there. The voice went silent. For a while, Yiyi stood there in the silence. She could no longer hear the screaming of the men, yet something told her they hadn't stopped fighting.
Then, as if the world were closing in around her, her own heartbeat became a thousand times louder. She could hear it, feel it, pumping through her violently as though that were the only thing that truly exited.
It's alright Yiyi.
The voice has become more strangely feminine in a way. Not in its softness. It was anything but. It's voice however did become higher. Shrill even. Cackling.
Oh my dear Yiyi. How glad I am that you trust in me.
Her shadow seemed to transform. Morphing into something else that wasn't hers. It became taller, and glowing red eyes appeared where the face must have been. A jagged shape.
Come, child, let me fix this for you.
Its voice was so very very soft. So...
Yiyi's hand closed around the pocket knife her father must have dropped earlier. And slowly, she made her way over to her father. Step by step; each on unsure. She teetered to and fro, barely even aware of herself. The men finally looked over at her as she approached them. Yiyi didn't care. Her step father was a cruel man who cared for no one and nothing except for her mother's beauty. Her father was a coward of a man. A coward who couldn't protect her or even defend her succesfully. That, to her, made him even worse than a man who truly despised her.
Let's play a game, shall we?
An unbridled sense of rage flew through her. She wanted him dead. She wanted all of them dead! No, she didn't want. She needed, desperately, for them to be dead. To feel that sense of justice for the wrong they have done to her.
The knife came down and dug itself through jean fabric and flesh. All the way to the bone and straight into that too. She twisted the blade. They're reacting. She can't tell why.
What did she do? Is Papa angry with her?
Reality came crashing over her. Unwelcome and cold. Moving far too fast. Red was everywhere. On her, on her father who was screaming, on her stepfather who was screaming into his phone. What happened? Why is everyone yelling. Why did Papa push off him?
She stumbled backwards, the knife dropping from her hands and onto the ground beside her. Nothing was registering. She didn't understand anything. She didn't understand why they were angry with her. She hadn't done anything, had she?
"Who..." Yiyi's gaze fixed onto the one figure who wasn't rushing through the world at an ungodly pace. A young man, maybe a teen even, standing in the shadows of the room. She didn't know him. Why was he in the apartment?
The boy did not reply and neither Yiyi's father or step father seemed to notice him at all. He held a staff. No, a spear: like the ones from the movie Yiyi had watched today. He lifted it carefully, as though he had all the time in the world and Yiyi just watched with intense curiousity as he made his way over to her.
Ah, he has such a pretty face. Like something from out of a cartoon.
The boy swung his spear at Yiyi. She blinked curiously up at him, even as an intense pain spread through her body. A screeching sound exploded in her head mere seconds later. Shrill and unrestrained with the full force of someone screaming out for help. She clutched at her head, trying to block it out but the sound almost seemed to radiate from somewhere inside of her.
Desperately, she tried to grasp at the pocket knife she had dropped to defend herself, though she wasn't sure why. Nothing quite made sense.
Wretched Elysium path walkers!
The words shot a sharp pain through Yiyi's mind and the moment her hand clasped around the pocket knife, she hurled it desperately at the boy. It wasn't working. It wasn't!
Her legs moved by themselves as she stumbled forwards. Desperately, she tried to reach her grandmother. She had to take her tubes out. She had to! Why, she didn't know, but she just had to. It would make the pain go away. It would make the boy go away. No one would hurt her family again. She just had to do this simple task.
The tip of the spear exploded through her chest and she wailed. It wasn't just a voice in her head this time. She wailed.
Then, her senses returned to her. No wound appeared to be on her body, and her papa and step father seemed momentarily frozen in time.
"Hey," the pretty blond boy smiled down at her, extending a hand. "Don't cry, alright? I didn't mean to scare you." He patted her head with a light hand and held out the doll to her. "Nothing happened here today. Just take it as a bad dream."
His hands came over her eyes, cool to the touch but steady.
"When you open your eyes, everything will be alright. That's my promise to you, ok?"